The official statement of Anglicanism that there are "two
major sacraments" has made it possible for some Anglicans--the so-
called High Church party--to hold the Catholic doctrine of seven
sacraments.
(3) Various substitutes were made for the Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation, the idea that in the Lord's Supper the bread and
wine by the word of the priest are actually changed into the Body and
Blood of Christ. The Lutherans maintained what they called
consubstantiation, that Christ was _with_ and _in_ the bread
and wine, as fire is in a hot iron, to borrow the metaphor of Luther
himself. The Calvinists, on the other hand, saw in the Eucharist, not
the efficacious sacrifice of Christ, but a simple commemoration of the
Last Supper; to them the bread and wine were mere symbols of the Body
and Blood. As to the Anglicans, their position was ambiguous, for their
official confession of faith declared at once that the Supper is the
communion of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ but that the
communicant receives Jesus Christ only spiritually: the present-day
"Low Church" Anglicans incline to a Calvinistic interpretation, those
of the "High Church" to the Catholic explanation.
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